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Thanksgiving History

Thanksgiving is not just an American holiday. It is a Christian holiday.

Despite popular American nostalgia that the first Thanksgiving was held by the Pilgrims after the arrival of the Mayflower at Plymouth Rock, it actually had its English beginnings along the James River at present-day Berkley Plantation in Charles City County, Virginia.

The year was 1619, twelve years after the establishment of Jamestown, when a group of thirty-eight settlers aboard the ship Margaret arrived after having made a ten-week journey across the Atlantic. Upon their landing, they knelt and prayed on the rich Tidewater soil, with their Captain John Woodlief proclaiming:

“Wee ordaine that the day of our ships arrivall at the place assigned for plantacion in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually keept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God.”

As historically recorded, this event was a first English Thanksgiving in the New World.

Thanksgiving is not just an American holiday. It is a Christian holiday.

Beginning on December 4, 1619, Berkeley Plantation (Charles City, VA), celebrated an annual thanksgiving to God on the anniversary of their safe arrival in the New World.